While most bathrooms in the U.S. are business as usual, toilets in Japan and in some parts of Europe are high-tech wonders, overflowing with luxurious amenities such as heated seats, sound effects, built-in bidets and lids that raise automatically.

[Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:57:54 GMT]
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Robots are great for going where humans can't, and the cramped confines of municipal water pipes are the perfect example. A new initiative is working on building robots that can access and repair aging water pipes from the inside.

[Tue, 9 Mar 2010 23:21:48 GMT]
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Engineered tobacco is paving the way for a new generation of plants that could clean up environmental problems ? and do it cheaply.
[Tue, 9 Mar 2010 17:13:42 GMT]
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The maiden flight of the X-51 Waverider aircraft ? the first U.S. hypersonic vehicle to fly in six years ? is scheduled to take place later in March.

[Tue, 9 Mar 2010 19:07:19 GMT]
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Touchscreens may be popular both in science fiction and real life as the symbol of next-gen technology, but an innovation called Skinput suggests the true interface of the future might be us.

[Thu, 4 Mar 2010 16:44:26 GMT]
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Beards composed partly of iron help mussels hold onto rocks and ships, according to new research published today in the journal Science.
[Thu, 4 Mar 2010 23:19:38 GMT]
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Science editor Alan Boyle's Weblog: Four amazingly inventive students win $30,000 each for innovations ranging from a DNA puzzle-solver to a low-cost prosthetic arm to an "iShoe" that checks your sense of balance.

[Thu, 4 Mar 2010 00:35:16 GMT]
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Scientists have created a flat surface patterned after the body hair of spiders that refuses to get wet.
[Tue, 2 Mar 2010 23:32:23 GMT]
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Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created a new infrared laser made from germanium that operates at room temperature. The research removes the cryogenic cooling systems previously needed for infrared lasers and could lead to powerful computer chips that operate at the speed of light.
[Tue, 2 Mar 2010 00:12:15 GMT]
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It appears the much-hyped Silicon Valley startup's "Energy Server" shows a lot of promise, but is the box too good to be true?
[Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:10:45 GMT]
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Besides eliminating your heating bill, perfect insulators ? material that reflects heat while absorbing none of it ? could make computers cooler and speed up cell phone downloads.

[Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:02:54 GMT]
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For years, film student Bill Parker had a nagging idea for a short movie: He'd show those letters from the "Star Wars" opening scroll raining down on Earth and exploding.

[Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:44:10 GMT]
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3-D solar panels could in principle absorb more light and generate more power than a flat panel of the same area footprint, which could be useful when available space is limited.

[Fri, 26 Feb 2010 02:01:19 GMT]
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Proposals at geoengineering range  from sucking carbon dioxide from the air and burying it deep in the ocean to building a space-based sunshield that would block some of the sun's radiation from warming up the Earth.
[Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:19:12 GMT]
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